Stories of police brutality and violence against police, terrorist attacks, and negative political rhetoric have filled the news cycle of late, making it easy to forget the reality of human kindness in the world. So in the tradition of city-rankings (including the most and least churched cities, the most Bible-minded cities and the most post-Christian cities in America), Barna decided to release a new ranking of the top 50 most generous cities in America. El Paso, TX tops the list with a host of cities in the south and midwest well-represented among the most
generous.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Thousands of people - including hundreds of Americans - are slaughtered in the name of ISIS and the Democratic Party wants to pretend the threat doesn't exist.

DNC Day 1: 61 Speakers - NOT ONE Mention of ISIS: Day one of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia featured 61 speakers -- including the First Lady, primary candidate Bernie Sanders, and Vice Presidential short-list contenders Elizabeth Warren and Corey Booker. Yet with all of those speakers, delivering hours and hours of prepared speeches, not one mention of ISIS was made.

Baghdad Bob Moment: MSNBC Claims DNC Chair 'Receives Cheers'...As She's Booed Relentlessly: They had a Baghdad Bob moment on MSNBC this morning in the 9am hour (Eastern time). The Lean Forward network's screen graphic read 'WASSERMAN SCHULTZ RECEIVES CHEERS AT FLORIDA DELEGATION BREAKFAST,' while it was very plain to viewers that she was being booed relentlessly. Anchor Stephanie Ruhle must have heard the boos in her earpiece, and said “She actually walked in to cheers and a lot of support from the crowd.” That's odd. All the audience saw and heard to match that graphic was booing and heckling.

The Democratic Party is imploding in Philadelphia. But in other news, my site counter has recorded 2 million page views at Tony Phyrillas on Politics from 550,000 Unique Visitors. Thanks for checking out my blog and for coming back again and again. Now pass the popcorn and let's watch Hillary, Debbie and Bernie devour each other in the City of Brotherly Love.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Obama: Student Debt Good for Economy: In a new report released by the White House, the Obama administration is declaring student loan debt a really good thing for the economy. The report, Investing in Higher Education: Benefits, Challenges, and the State of Student Debt, claims that the crushing $1.3 trillion America's students are carrying around on their backs has actually helped them along the path to success:

Leaked DNC E-Mails Reveal Plot to Sabotage Sanders, Control Media Narrative: On Friday, Wikileaks published nearly 20,000 e-mails, reportedly via the hacker Guccifer 2.0, showing an apparent attempt to sabotage Bernie Sanders' campaign in favor of Hillary Clinton and other messages that show collusion between Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, her staff and members of the mainstream media.

Clinton and Trump Get Closer In The Polls: The polling news continues to be bad for Hillary Clinton and good for Donald Trump as the Republicans wrap up their convention in Cleveland. Three polls released this week, all conducted before the convention was over and Trump's acceptance speech was watched by 32 million people, show Clinton's lead shrinking or disappearing altogether.

Monday, July 18, 2016

More Sanders voters say they will choose 'other,' or not vote, than back Clinton: Supporters of rebel Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders are not following his lead in backing Hillary Rodham Clinton, detouring away from the establishment Democrat to other candidates including Donald Trump. A new Economist/YouGov poll showed that the email scandal, and FBI Director James Comey's charge that Clinton's behavior was extremely careless, has led Sanders backers to abandon the former secretary of State. Since Comey's House testimony, support for Clinton has dropped 12 points, to 41 percent. For the first time, Sanders supporters now prefer either someone else or they won't vote.

Survey of military puts Trump ahead of Clinton by 2-1: U.S. military personnel back Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton by a more than 2-1 majority, but most service members aren't happy with either candidate, according to a new survey by the Military Times. The survey of 1,915 active-duty personnel, reservists, and National Guard personnel, conducted July 5-8, found that 49 percent back Trump while only 20 percent support Clinton and 23 percent say they intend to vote for a third party or independent candidate. More than 61 percent say they are either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with Trump as the GOP nominee, while a whopping 82 percent say the same about Clinton. This is the worst presidential election I have ever seen, said one Air Force master sergeant who responded to the survey. How in the world could we only have Hillary and Trump as the options? The survey is not scientific, it should be noted. It is limited to Military Times subscribers and is representative of the services' more senior and career-oriented members, those who run the military's day-to-day operations and carry out its policies, according to the publication.

TV Reporters' Top 10 Softball Questions for Hillary: NewsBusters is continuing to document the news media’s role in enabling Hillary Clinton’s political career, showing how reporters showered were with positive news coverage while they savaged her opponents. Today, ten examples representing the softball treatment Hillary has received in TV interviews over the years.

By Nathan Benefield
Last June, Gov. Wolf sparked a fiasco by vetoing the General
Assembly’s budget in its entirety. The resulting 9-month impasse
crippled nonprofits and threatened to shutter schools across the state.
To avoid the political fallout of a repeat performance this year, the
Legislature passed a spending plan Wolf says he’ll sign.

One problem: Lawmakers never said how they’ll pay for it.

Strangely, that was part of the plan. One legislative leader bluntly
stated, “We want to agree on a general appropriations bill, and then
we’ll get to work on how to pay for it.”

That’s not how budgeting should work — just ask any family or
business. It’s easy for the Legislature to say they’ll spend 5 percent
more this year than last. It’s harder deciding how to make those ends
meet.

Almost certain to come, though, are tax increases.

Legislators and the governor have declared “broad-based” tax
increases off the table. But they are considering a new tax on natural
gas consumption.

This would raise home-heating bills for 2.7 million Pennsylvania
homeowners—families, seniors, low-income households, and small business
owners who use natural gas. In other words, a “broad-based” tax increase
by another name.

Pennsylvanians can also expect a major cigarette tax increase. This
tax falls disproportionately on low-income households, while increasing
smuggling across state lines. Lawmakers’ spend-first mentality may mean
balancing the budget on the backs of the poor while incentivizing a
black market.

Pennsylvania already heavily relies on revenue from tobacco,
gambling, and alcohol to fill budget gaps — in fact we lead the nation
in so-called “sin taxes.” These revenue sources are unpredictable,
decline over time, and create perverse incentives.

The state needs Pennsylvanians to keep smoking, drinking, and gambling to enable lawmakers’ addiction to overspending.

Beyond the faulty spend-first, tax-later approach, the budget itself
represents the largest spending jump in a decade — $1.6 billion over
last year’s budget. This is five times the rate of inflation and
population growth.

Politicians often cite a “structural deficit” to justify such
spending increases. However, the “structural deficit” exists only
because of years of legislative inaction on pension reform and welfare
reform.

Pension costs have skyrocketed over the past decade as previous
legislatures and governors ignored calls for reform. Yet, we continue
pushing costs onto future generations instead of paying now for what
we’ve promised.

Welfare spending growth also outpaces the growth of our economy,
making it unsustainable for taxpayers. Elected officials must tackle
this long-term problem and control welfare spending growth.

Unfortunately, the current budget addresses neither of these cost-drivers.

It also does not address the $700 million in corporate welfare
subsidies the state doles out at taxpayers’ expense — more than any
other state in the nation. Instead, the budget adds $10 million in
corporate handouts and pork barrel projects.

Meanwhile, the rush to pass a budget by the deadline after months of procrastination came at the expense of proper scrutiny.

For example, page 400 of the budget bill authorizes the Department of
Human Services to borrow an unlimited amount of money from the Worker’s
Compensation Fund to pay excessive Medicaid bills. There’s no way to
know how much this will cost taxpayers.

Similarly, the Senate moved $95 million in spending off-budget,
hiding the true cost, though taxpayers will still pay the bill. In
reality, the Senate added $74 million in spending to the House’s budget
plan.

This new spending won’t reduce the “structural deficit.” Neither will
an $18 million increase (plus an $8 million retroactive increase for
last year) in the Legislature’s own budget.

Despite these criticisms, taxpayers can be thankful lawmakers
rejected Wolf’s call for higher income and sales taxes to fund about
$1.7 billion more in spending. The budget also expands the highly
successful Education Improvement Tax Credit, which will provide better
educational options for thousands of students.

Yet, as it stands, this budget leaves families trapped in a game of
tax roulette — praying their taxes don’t go up this year. Next year,
let’s hope taxpayers don’t have to choose between an on-time budget and a
good budget.

Study confirms it's hard for Obamacare customers to find doctors: Health insurance plans offered both on and off the Obamacare marketplaces fall far short in helping patients access doctors, a new study finds.
When researchers directed secret shoppers to call doctors listed on directories provided by California Blue Cross Blue Shield, they were unable to set up appointments with nearly three in four of the providers, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.
Out of 743 doctors listed, the callers weren't able to reach nearly 20 percent using the contact information listed. Ten percent of the doctors were no longer with the group listed or had never been with the group at all. Another 10 percent weren't accepting new patients.
In another 30 percent of the cases, the specialty listed in the provider directory didn't match the specialty stated by the receptionist at the practice.

AP Fact-Checks Hillary's Lies: Her Story 'Collapses' Under Scrutiny:
The majority of mainstream media outlets are burying FBI director James Comey's recent remarks on the key findings of his investigation into Hillary Clinton's home-brew email server. While the Democratic presidential candidate skirted punitive repercussions, Comey's revelations did -- or at least, should -- indict Clinton in the court of public opinion, as he enumerated just how often and egregiously Clinton lied both to authorities and the American public.

David Horowitz: The Most Frightening Political Fix: Today we have witnessed a most frightening manifestation of the corruption of our political system. Doubly frightening because of what it augurs for all our futures if Hillary Clinton should prevail in the November elections. At the center of this corruption – but hardly alone – are the criminal Clintons – the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics – and their Democratic Party allies; but we should not fail to mention also the Republican enablers who would rather fight each other and appease their adversaries than win the political wars.

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Why Politics Matter

“Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything – high and low and, most especially, high – lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933.” –– Charles Krauthammer

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About Me

Tony A. Phyrillas is a leading conservative columnist, commentator and blogger based in Pennsylvania.
A veteran newspaperman with 33 years experience as a reporter, editor, photographer and columnist, Phyrillas received a first place award in 2010 for best column from the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors and a first place award in 2007 for Best Opinion Column from Suburban Newspapers of America. He was recognized for column writing in 2007 by the Society of Professional Journalists, Keystone Chapter and in 2006 by the SPJ Greater Philadelphia Chapter.
Phyrillas is ranked among the most influential political bloggers in Pennsylvania by BlogNetNews.com.
Odyssey: The World of Greece magazine named Phyrillas one of the leading Greek-American bloggers in the world.
A Penn State University graduate, Phyrillas is the editor/content manager of The Mercury, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper in Pottstown, Pa.
Phyrillas made frequent appearances on talk radio and as a panelist on the "Journalists Roundtable" program on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.
He co-hosted a weekly radio program on WPAZ 1370 AM for 2 years.